230 lawyers who assembled under the organisation of Asrın Law Office have applied to Bursa Public Prosecutor’s House demanding a meeting with Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan who has been denied visit by his lawyers since 27 July 2011.

Lawyers launched an international petition campaign against the isolation of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, emphasizing that the isolation threatened peace, had torturous aspects, and should end immediately.

It has always been a matter of historical curiosity that one of the American diplomats who was deeply involved in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was named Achilles. As the head of the State Department’s Office of Western European Affairs after World War II and the eventual U.S. Vice Deputy of the North Atlantic Council, Theodore Achilles played a lead role in drafting the treaty that was designed to deter an expansionist Soviet Union from engaging in an armed attack on Western Europe. With 11 European nations joining the U.S. as founding members in 1949, the alliance quickly grew to include two other countries – Greece and Turkey – by 1952 and today encompasses 28 members.

The 5 days-long sit-in in front of the Council of Europe (EC), European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Commission for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) buildings in Strasbourg continues in its third day.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 500 Islamist fighters on Wednesday crossed the Turkish border and headed for the Syrian town of Azaz in northern Aleppo province. Trusted sources confirmed to the observatory that the fighters’ moving was under the supervision of the Turkish authorities.

Turkish experts — aside from the most hardened, pro-government experts — agree that Ankara’s foreign policy under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is in shambles. They generally agree this was caused by the country abandoning its traditional foreign policy in favor of an Islamist outlook.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Selahettin Demirtas, co-chair of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), bitterly denounced the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Tuesday, alleging it is little more than an “extension of” the Islamic State group (ISIS).

The People’s Protection Units (PYD) co-chair Salih Muslim stated in an interview with a German media outlet on Tuesday, February 23, 2016, that the main objective of the PYD is to put an end to the Islamic State in Rojava.

10. More Arab youths join the ranks of YPG in Efrîn

21 February 2016 / ANF News

The first group of Arab fighters have finished the “Martyr Feyrûz” training cycle at Martyr Xebat Military Academy in Efrîn Canton of Rojava, West Kurdistan.

Turkey’s misguided policies have been taking that pivotal country in the wrong direction for several years. Now the errors and contradictions apparent in its domestic politics are becoming a major international problem, threatening to widen the conflict racking the region in which until recently it was a force for stability and sanity.

A military ground operation in Syria by Turkey and Saudi Arabia is not on the agenda and any such move would need to involve all countries in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Monday.

Turkey’s European Union and foreign ministers have harshly criticized the European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur Kati Piri over her visit to the southeastern province of Diyarbakır last week, saying she has lost her neutrality on Turkish issues.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (K24) – The representative of Turkey’s People’s Democratic Party (HDP) to Erbil, Abit Ike said on Sunday that Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) should be more mindful of the political and social situation in Turkey.

In a public cemetery next to a military air base in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, flags of a Syrian Kurdish militia are draped over many of the tombstones.

Death notices posted online by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a key U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State in north Syria, show about half of those killed on its front lines in the last three months alone were Turkish-born.

QAMISHLI: Kurdish forces in Syria, where they have been targeted by Turkish artillery, said Thursday they would respect a ceasefire due to start this weekend but retain the right to “retaliate” if attacked.

“We, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), give great importance to the process of cessation of hostilities announced by the United States and Russia and we will respect it, while retaining the right to retaliate… if we are attacked,” YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said on his Facebook page.

An investigation has been launched into Turkish journalists Hasan Cemal and Tuğçe Tatari, whose books have recently been banned from sale and distribution by Turkish courts, on suspicion of engaging in terrorist activities, according to a news report on the website of the pro-government daily Sabah.

It is quite clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin views the United States not as a partner or even as an adversary but as an enemy. The fact is brought to grotesque levels by a new public campaign that literally draws horns on President Barack Obama, describing him as an international mass murderer. (The Russian government denies responsibility for the campaign.) The campaign is shocking and eye-catching, like a highway wreck. But far more distressing is what Putin is doing in Syria, where he is outplaying America and its allies, with disastrous consequences.

Syria’s Kurds are on a roll. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a loose coalition consisting primarily of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), and an assortment of Sunni Arab, Turkmen, Yazidi and Assyrian ethnic militias are steadily expanding west of the Euphrates River. In the last several weeks the SDF has taken control of the Menagh Air Base and several key villages to the north and west of Aleppo. More importantly, it is closing in on its long sought goal of uniting the Kurdish majority canton of Afrin in the west with the rest of the Kurdish controlled areas of northern Syria.

Wednesday’s car bombing in Turkey killed some twenty soldiers and eight civilians. Before the smoke had even cleared from the scene, President Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutoglu announced that the attack had been carried out by a member of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Forces (YPG). Within a few hours of the attack, in other words, Mr. Davutoglu was saying “A direct link between the attack and the YPG has been established,” and that Turkish security services had already established the identity, birthplace, personal history and political affiliation of the alleged bomber (Salih Necer, a 24-year old citizen of Syria). The alacrity of their detective work seems beyond impressive.

Since the Mu’l’livaaykkaal killings of 2009, the Tamil diaspora has mostly focused political efforts towards demanding justice for the inhuman crimes committed against Tamil civilians. While such efforts have elevated international awareness of the gross human rights violations committed by the Sri Lanka military during the war, the approach has not yielded results on prosecuting the perpetrators of the international crimes. In light of this situation, it is imperative for the Tamil diaspora to establish alliances with the Kurds and other people marginalized by oppressive states and the International Community.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — In pitch dark one night in 1991, some 50 people marched from Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq toward the Turkish border, unarmed and clad in traditional local attire. As they approached the frontier, a Turkish reconnaissance helicopter began to hover in the area, complicating their plan to sneak into Turkey. Only one woman marched among the men — 19-year-old Amineh Kakabaveh. She kept calm despite the building tension. Evading the helicopter and the border guards, the travelers managed to reach the Turkish border town of Silopi around midnight. The young Kakabaveh could have hardly imagined she was on a journey to a bright political career in Europe.

Was the Kurdish leader Abdulla Ocalan arrested because he was a terrorist or because he was leading a reformist/secular party? Why is a non-Islamic progressive movement in the Middle East disturbing the Western powers?

The Kurdish prisoner leader Abdulla Ocalan was arrested in 1999 in Nairobi with the aid of several Western countries and political institutions including the CIA cooperating with the Turkish National Intelligence Agency. Consequentially, Apo, as Kurdish people call him affectionately, has been incarcerated on the island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara that has been guarded by hundreds of armed Turkish soldiers for 17 years, without adequate facilities, or allowance of visitation. He was sentenced to death. Turkey had rescinded the death penalty in order to gain admission to European Union membership. The only crime he was accused of was being the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the largest and strongest secular or popular reformist party in the Middle East and possibly the world.

Savvas Kalenteridis is a blogger, columnist, and a former Greek intelligence officer. In this exclusive interview he talks for the first time about his travels with Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned founder of the PKK. Kalenteridis accompanied Ocalan from Athens to Russia, and later from Athens to Kenya, where Ocalan was ultimately arrested by Turkish officials in 1999.

NEW YORK, United States – US President Barack Obama is often criticised as indecisive for his hands-off approach to Syria’s civil war. His position grows more uncomfortable daily, with Washington increasingly at odds with a long-standing ally, Turkey, over the conflict. Washington is torn over its support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, one of the most effective forces in the war, and Ankara’s fears that Syrian Kurds will build a proto-state on its southern border and fuel discontent among Turkey’s own restive Kurdish population.

Turkey is descending ever further into chaos. The ruling AKP’s policy on Syria has led to the rise of extremist Islamist groups within Turkey’s borders and introduced serious tensions into its relations with Russia, as the Turkish state wages war again in North Kurdistan and cracks down on every form of opposition.

The situation in Turkey’s South-East region is continuing to escalate. The latest escalation of conflict between the Turkish government and Kurds in Turkey is both alarming and critical for Turkey, Europe, the Middle East and the rest of the world.

As scholars associated with universities and higher education institutions in Australia, we are extremely disturbed by Turkey’s recent treatment of academics who have spoken out against atrocities being committed by the Turkish state against Kurdish civilians in the eastern parts of the country.

Some 1128 Turkish and Kurdish “Academics for Peace” have courageously signed a statement entitled “We Will Not Be A Party To This Crime”, which calls on the Turkish government to cease hostilities against its Kurdish population. Since the publication of this statement, these academics have been subject to a sustained campaign of abuse and violence from both the Turkish state and its supporters.

Finally, 17 years after Abdullah Ocalan was brutally and unlawfully abducted in Nairobi, drugged, blindfolded and taken to Turkey by Turkish agents, with the sinister connivance of several other sovereign states, including Greece, this international plot is at last to be exposed at the Court of First Instance of Athens on November 4th. The kidnapping and subsequent imprisonment of Ocalan was a despicable as well as an unlawful act.

EMERGENCY APPEAL FOR AFRIN

Life in Afrin

Weekly News Briefing

Jeremy Corbyn issues statement of support for the National Demo

Message from Jeremy Corbyn to Kurdish national demonstration in London:
“I’m sorry not to be able to be with you today, but I send a message of solidarity with today’s demonstration, and with the Kurdish people, under sustained attack across the Middle East.
The conflict in Syria has been the trigger for an onslaught against the Kurdish people, who are defending their autonomy and their rights.
We are watching closely the alarming events that have been unfolding in Turkey in recent weeks, including the killing of civilians and destruction of Kurdish homes.
Any negotiated settlement of the Syrian conflict must include peace and justice for the Kurds, including in Turkey. And the Turkish government needs as a matter of urgency to restart the peace process with the Kurds and respect the rights of all its people.
We call for an end to repression of the Kurds and justice for the Kurdish people throughout the Middle East.”

Destruction and Repression in North Kurdistan

Freedom for Ocalan!

On the 19th anniversary of his kidnap and imprisonment by Turkey, we renew our call for Abdullah Ocalan to be freed as part of a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question.